Sutton Capital: THE INVESTOR with Joel Palathinkal Sep 25, 2026 30m · 21m saved
With Anil Bahirwani, Founder and CEO of AMB Group and Portfolio Manager of AMB Megatrend, who founded MIFX, Indonesia's largest retail FX broker
Anil Bahirwani has been buying Indonesian stocks heavily for the past 3 to 6 months, mostly local banks, while foreign investors sell.
US stock indexes sit near their highs. Indonesia's market is low because of what he called stability concerns, and he said that selling pressure is a sentiment problem rather than a problem with the companies.
"In my investing in equities, for example, I ask myself not how to make money. I ask myself what can kill me and I will not go there."
Anil Bahirwani, Founder and CEO of Jakarta-based AMB Group and Portfolio Manager of AMB Megatrend, on Sutton Capital: THE INVESTOR, has spent about 30 years in the financial business. According to AMB Megatrend's own team page, he founded MIFX in 2000 and built it into Indonesia's largest retail FX broker, then set up the FX liquidity provider Surya Anugrah Mulya in 2007. His FX and commodities fund started in 2020.
The full interview is covered here so you can skip it. 30 minutes of audio, 9 minutes of reading.
Here are the 8 lessons that matter.
Key Takeaways
Indonesian stocks are low because foreign investors sold, not because the companies stopped making money
He asks what can kill him before asking how to make money, and in stocks the answer is leverage
A 70% edge repeated hundreds of times is how he describes compounding in money, knowledge and relationships
He holds 10 to 15 stocks, not 50, so he can put more money into what he understands
Marketing a new fund got him nowhere: in the first 3 to 5 years, he said, nobody wants to talk to you
Temperament, not technique, decides investing results
The test is watching a 200% gain turn into a 50% loss
1. An FX Agent's Son
The host asked what made him start an FX business. Bahirwani said it began with his father.
He came home from Australia in 1994 and joined his father's FX agency
"Actually when I came back when I finished my studies from Curtin in Australia Perth in 1994, my dad was an agent, like a broker, but agent of FX, other FX companies in Indonesia." — Anil Bahirwani
He studied economics and finance, traded on his own account and brought clients to his father's small agency. Around 1995 to 1997, the owner of the company the agency worked for ran about 20 branches, and Bahirwani watched him visit them.
The ambition came from watching a bigger firm's owner
"I wish I can be like him one day." — Anil Bahirwani
"That was the starting fire, I was young, hungry, and that's it, that was maybe the feeling that I had." — Anil Bahirwani
